Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ranking the cup and cores

I’m a factory ammo guy. With the current demand on ammo I’m trying to have as many options open as possible in my hunt for ammo. I’m not into LR hunting so that’s not a concern

Federal Blue Box is always pretty darned great in their 270 and 30-06 loads from what I’ve seen. Their 270/130 blue box has been excellent.

Mossy- where do you hunt elk? Bulls? cows?

Interlock
Ballistic Tip
Game King.

I hunt eastern Washington. Spike only regs unless you draw an antlerless tag (every few years) or any bull which is essentially Once in a lifetime

I hunt timber (my favorite) but have opportunities to as far as one can shoot. My limit is 400 yds.

I’d be fine with about anything that’s been mentioned if you keep the weight on the higher end. Just me, but elk and deer have been getting rolled over from plain old 270’s and 06’s with regular ammo. Again, the Federal stuff is pretty good ammo.

From the little I’ve shot it and seen it used the Hornady budget stuff has been good shooting as well. Plus, it’s pretty tough to beat plain old Interlocks at normal speeds.

I've hunted with the 30/06 for the past 50 years. I started out with Remington Core-lokt. The 180's grouped better out of my Model 700 than the 150's. So I went with the 180. Killed everything from mule deer, elk , antelope and black bear. Found several bullets in elk----they were perfect mushrooms---just like the photos in the magazines. Then I drew a bighorn sheep tag & my reloading buddy said I needed to shoot reloads for accuracy. I tried both Hornady interlock & Nolser solid base. Interlocks were a little more accurate. FYI----I used up the 180 Nolser solid base on a couple cow elk----they worked. I used my interlock reloads on bighorn sheep, mtn goat and WY moose. They worked just fine---everything died. I never found any bullets. I decided that reloading wasn't for me and I went back to factory loads. I tested Federal, Winchester & Remington in wet phone books. The Winchester PP was a perfect mushroom & weight @ 140 grains--if I remember correctly. The Federal & Remington really didn't mushroom----they both weighed about 100 grains. So I choose to use Winchester PP & they worked great on black bear, elk and mule deer. I've never recovered a bullet from an animal. I've lost only 1 animal. A cow elk that I tried to break her spine----only shot I had & have regretted it very since. Young & dumb.

I site my rifle in 3" high @ 100 yards & go hunt. Everything is 180 grains in everything---factory or reloads.

I try to get a couple boxes every fall when there is a $5 rebate per box.

In all honesty any of the Big 3 in 180 grain will work in a 30/06 for anything in the lower 48. For AK grizzly, I would up it to 220 grain & use a Nolser partition. That's what I'm planning on using this June on my AK grizzly hunt. But many a grizz has been killed with 220 grain Core-lokt factory loads AK natives.

Colorado Bob

That’s a great report Bob.

I do not know how they "rank", but we have shot way more critters with the Interlock than anything else.
Short list:
243 100gr deer/antelope
257 117gr deer
264 129gr deer
277 130 & 150gr deer/antelope/hogs/black bear/ caribou/elk
338 200gr deer Now discontinued
375 270gr deer

Have used some NBT's and Ballistics silvertips with no issues.
Zero experience with Speer and Sierra



So based on my experience, I cannot argue with the above statement.

I really like Hornady Interlocks. This summer I shot a 140g Interlock into a railroad tie at 100 yards. Starting velocity was ~ 3150 fps. When I found the bullet it looked to mushroom back to the lock where it stopped and have real good expansion and weighs 105.2g. I have shot several antelope and deer with this bullet and it has always been accurate.

The only animal I have shot with a Speer Hotcore was a cow elk at 280 yards fired from a 30-06 at 2800 fps. It broke both shoulder killing her pretty much right there.

The NBT I have used have been a bit erratic. I only recall one exiting and at least on lost its core with the jacket found under the hide on the offside.

Sierras have been erratic too unless the range has bee extended.

The NBT and Sierra have had a MV of 3000-3200 fps.

Accuracy wise Sierra's and NBT have been the most accurate than Interlocks and then Speers.

If I had to choose one it would easily be the Hornady.

Exactly, and for obvious reasons... I think I'd throw the WW powerpoints in between the interlocks and corelokts though. They are a damn good bullet. Speer is pretty much garbage. I'd put the Sierra before those as well. So my list would look like this:

Hornady interlocks, Winchester powerpoints, Sierra Gamekings, Remington core lokt. Speer wouldn't even be in the running..

I would say Hornady Interlocks and Sierra Gamekings are a tie in this household, and then the HotCor. I like heavy for caliber bullets and tried the 200 gr HotCor as a do all in a 30-06, shot one doe whitetail and 2 cow elk. That big hotcor just poked a hole through the lungs on all 3, not much expansion at all. The doe was shot at about 200 yds and ran that far plus up and side hill after the shot. I was lucky to find her. Not much blood either. The one cow elk just milled around with the rest of the herd for an honest 2 minutes or better until she fell over. After the first shot the herd bunched up and there was not an opportunity for a follow up. I am lucky they didn't run off.

The obvious query has to do with bullet performance and I've been happy with Interlocks (as long as you keep them under 2700 fps or so), but I have had good results (hogs) with the 165gr (30 cal) Sierra Game Changer. I also like Winchester Power Points.

None of the bullets I listed above was kept under 2700. Only exception might be the 257 caliber, as it was not checked over chrono.

But I am not a Weatherby type of guy....

I did deer control shooting shot them with just about every bullet made. from 22 to 50 caliber...what I needed and wanted was any behind the shoulder shot to exit with minimum velocity, largest expansion and a dead animal.....most would go feet if at all......

243 Winchester Sierra 85 gr. HPBT

I would only shoot deer that were calm and standing in a perfect broadside position usually under 100 yards....

Any other caliber light for caliber would be Hornady.....

I have pointed out here (and elsewhere) that often core/jacket separations don't mean nearly as much as many hunters apparently believe. The most extreme examples were two bullets that lost their jackets at the ENTRANCE hole on medium-sized buck deer, one a 130-grain Sierra GameKing from a .270 Winchester, and the other a 105-grain Speer Hot-Cor from a .243 Winchester. In both cases the core went on into the deer and killed it.

Another one that apparently puzzles many people is Ballistic Tips. Quite frequently the jacket is all that's recovered--but usually from the opposite side of the animal. (Or at least that's where I've always found them.) But in Ballistic Tips the jacket generally weighs as much or more than the core--the reason the jacket penetrates deeper when they separate.

Haven't found one in a while though, the last a 100-grain .25 from a .257 Roberts, from a mature Montana doe whitetail shot at 50 yards quartering toward me. The bullet broke the shoulder joint, and the jacket was found under the hide at the rear of the ribcage on the opposite side.

yup.....agreed

Will also note that like a lot of others here, I like Hornady Interlocks a lot. In fact, liked Hornady Spire Points a lot even before the Interlock ring was introduced. Killed a pile of deer with the 150-grain from the .270 Winchester, started at around 2900 fps, and only recovered one, which broke both shoulders and the spine on a medium-sized whitetail buck at around 200 yards. Found the core in the jacket, but loose, under the hide of the far shoulder.

Another exited a huge mule deer buck, shot in the middle of the chest as it faced me. The deer was uphill on a mountainside, and the bullet broke the spine at rear of the ribs before exiting. The buck weighed 232 pounds field-dressed after hanging for a week.

Dunno how many animals Eileen and I have killed with Interlocks, but they've ranged from pronghorn-size to elk-size. The bullets included the 100-grain .25, 129 6.5, 130 .270, 139 7mm, 165 .30 and 225 .338, and the only one started down near 2700 was the 225 .338, at 2800 fps. The rest started at 2900-3150, and all worked very well. The only three I can remember recovering were a 100-grain .25 that broke the neck of a mule deer buck at close range, the 139 from a .280 Remington that killed my first caribou (a broadside shot at 200 yards), and a 225 .338 that killed a big whitetail buck with a shot angled from the rear of the left ribs into the right shoulder. They all mushroomed back to the Interlock ring.

I kind of chuckle when I hear guys bitch about recovering only small pieces of bullets and/or jackets. Obviously the reason for the dislike is the very dead animal at their feet that they have conducted an autopsy on....